National Share a Story Month


Storytelling is a fun, highly interactive and creative activity which helps to support children’s learning, raise their attainment and bring literacy to life. 

National Share a Story month during May is an annual celebration that aims to bring children and stories together. The theme this year is ‘A Place for Stories’ which encourages children to read a story in a range of unusual places, providing they are safe and comfortable areas. 

It can be more exciting and engaging for children if they choose to read in a place that they love. There are loads of different and unusual places to share stories to increase children’s interest in reading. For example: their homemade fort, outside under a tree, aboard a ferry, on a farm, under a bridge, in a café or at the bottom of the garden.

The theory of enhancing children’s education, creativity and wellbeing by teaching outside supports many of the above places to read. So, why not find unusual places around the school grounds or create ideas for when the children return home to help pique their interest in reading. 

Storytelling has been proven beneficial to all ages. It is fun and engaging to tell stories to youngsters in an entertaining and animated way as it builds on their imagination, supports their literacy skills and ultimately aids their learning. It is also beneficial to involve older children by encouraging them to read their favourites to you. 

The Nuffield Foundation carried out a study with secondary students comprising of three interventions, including vocabulary, storytelling and a combination of the two. 90% of students had speech, language and communication difficulties and students were assigned to one of the three interventions. The study resulted in all three tasks proving effective in improving the student’s language which showed the effectiveness and importance of storytelling in the secondary phase. 

SO, why not get involved with National Share a Story Month and support your children by encouraging them to read in a variety of ways and bring their favourite stories to life. You may find the following resources helpful:

Early Learn HQ - an extensive collection of resources including popular stories such as The Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Hansel & Gretel and much more. 

Storytelling School - Listen to Chris and Adam telling stories. 

Society for Storytelling - provides fact sheets, storytelling advice and support for storytelling events.

The Federation of Children’s Book Group - The 2016 Booklist is now available and contains the most popular books of the year. Here, you can request a free booklist. 

Settle Stories - Through the Settle Stories learning programme, they work with over 6,000 young people a year, sending highly acclaimed professional storytellers into schools.

KLZ Storytime - If you visit the KLZ Storytime site you will find a growing collection of stories which you can simply play to your class through your Interactive Whiteboard. They vary in length but it might give you another half an hour to get some marking done at the same time! Contact the team on 0300 065 8800 for more information. 

Let us know how you are joining in with National Share a Story month. If you are interested in sharing your class’s favourite stories on our blog then email kent.teach@kent.gov.uk. You may be interested in reading, ‘Taking the Class Outside’ and ‘Irresistible learning through storytelling’.

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